Mouth-Controller Device for triggering a hand held gun/firearm and controlling its&#39; accessories.

ABSTRACT

This invention is a Mouth-Controller Device for triggering a hand held gun/firearm and controlling its&#39; accessories. Necessary to accommodate this is a battery-pack-receiver located on the gun itself (either in the form of a front hand grip, or block style battery-pack-receiver, and a solenoid/plunger to push the trigger, that resides in a solenoid housing (or optional fluid or pneumatic plunger for trigger push).

REFERENCES CITED

U.S. Patent Documents 8,036,704 October 2001 Werner

Japanese Patent Documents 03071217 August 2003 Tsunesada

1. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A. Field of the Invention The present invention falls into the field of ALTERNATE/ENHANCED ways of triggering a Firearm, and/or controlling it's accessories.

B. Description of the Prior Art

Many a paint ball gun, electronic trigger patent has been granted, and Metal Storm Inc. has been given patents on electronic triggering devices of machine guns already in use by the military. None of these will be addressed here, because they do not mouth activate. Likewise Inventions that completely replace the standard mechanical trigger on a pistol or rifle, with an electronic activated firing pin will not be included below. This invention is an after market, 3^(rd) party, add-on product that any citizen owning his own pistol/rifle can adapt to his existing hardware.

Patents granted in the past that could possibly preclude the granting of this patent are:

-   (1) U.S. Pat. No. 8,036,704 to Werner November 2011

U.S. Pat. No. 8,036,704 issued to Theodore J Werner in November of 2011 claims “a device for wirelessly and remotely actuating a trigger”. It differs from this invention in that Werners' is a REMOTE triggering device, this one is a LOCAL triggering device. Werners push button hand held switch implies that the shooter is either holding the weapon with one hand, or not holding the pistol or rifle at all (it is affixed). How can you hold a pistol, for example, both hands gripping the weapon preparing for kick back of said weapon and try to aim it properly, all with one hand (the other being on his thumb bob). Try this with a 357 magnum (whose kickback is downright painful) and see how long the gun stays in your hand. You cannot. The implication of his triggering device is that the user is using it REMOTELY, i.e. far removed from the weapon. Therefore the weapon must be affixed somehow, away from the human operating the thumbob. His push button thumbob console signals could travel miles to reach the receiver affixed to the gun. Whereas the Mouth-Controller Device is low power (most likely, blue-tooth) activated, capable of traveling only for a mere 4 feet from mouth to hand (therefore opening up our frequency range to any frequency, not just blue-tooth, since Mouth-Controller Device signal dies out after an approx. 4 foot radius). Werners' 2 button thumb bob is impractical for mouth activation, and makes no provision for controlling more accessories than the trigger.

Secondly, Werner specifically states in claim 5 “The device of claim 1, wherein transmitting portion has a pair of buttons thereon; wherein one button of pair of buttons of transmitting portion actuates receiving portion IN ONE DIRECTION; and wherein the other button of pair of buttons of transmitting portion actuates receiving portion in AN OPPOSITE DIRECTION.” This is useful for machine gun or full auto, triggering only. To make the shooter press the trigger retract button each time for semi auto, is to reduce the semi-auto shooters rounds per minute to a deadly trickle. Whereas he might be able to get off a shot every second normally in semi auto mode, now having to push 2 buttons, he might only get off a shot every 4 seconds. Enough time to die in. However for a fully automatic machine gun, it makes perfect sense to push one button, & have the trigger stay down until say 5 seconds later after spraying your target w. several full auto rounds, you press the trigger reverse button to lay off constant firing. The Mouth-Controller Device can work in full or semi auto mode. Werners' has been shown to be incapable of effective semi auto mode. If Werner argues that you can put his thumbob in your mouth (thus his patent covers the same area as this patent) I ask you, just try to press the buttons with your tongue, one for shoot on, and the other button for shoot off, and see how many times you will be able to do that before your tongue gives out. Perhaps 10 rounds, before your tongue needs a rest. Once again, tongue rest time is time enough to die, in.

Thirdly, Werner uses an L shaped push rod that goes through a hole in the trigger, which push rod is connected to a housing mounted in front of the trigger guard. Said push rod running along side the trigger guard, where it will pinch shooters hand as it mechanically cycles through, or will drag on the shooters hand/fingers hindering either the clasp of the gun or the triggering action. Further proof that Werners' device is meant to be affixed and far away from shooter. It is not meant to be hand held by shooter, in a pistol, for example where shooter wraps hand and fingers around front of and beside, trigger guard where a side rod can do much damage, catching both clothing (gloves), and skin, or be drug down to such a slow stroke as to delay firing the gun beyond accurate shooting, as no shooter can hold the gun on target long, after signaling trigger pull.

The effect on self defending citizens if Werners' patent is allowed to pre-empt all other wireless trigger activators, will be for many citizens to die, as Werners' has been shown to be impractical for LOCAL, weapon held in both hands by the shooter, semi auto self defense. Werners invention may sell to the military as a remote controlled bunker gun but not to the hand held domestic market, due to it's impracticality of use, if it is allowed to bar all other wireless triggers, all self defending citizens will suffer.

-   (2) Japanese patent #03071217 to Tsunesada August 2003

Japanese Patent Number 03071217 issued to Tsunesada on Aug. 28, 2003 claims an apparatus where the user pulls the trigger by attaching a bellow to the front end of a pipe held in his mouth, and expanding the bellows, instead of using his finger to pull the trigger. The Mouth-Controller Device differs from Tsunesada's in that Tsunesada's is blow activated. This one is tongue button and bite down-electronic activated. In the heat of battle, it is often necessary to yell directions, signals, plans, etc. at a fellow soldier. If you have to do this with a pipe in your mouth, it will be much more difficult than to free up the tongue to frame speech, work the cigar over to one side of the mouth to free up the lips as much as possible, and yell your message, w/o worrying about how much air you are blowing into a pipe, as you shout, and accidentally trigger your weapon.

2. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A Mouth-Controller Device for Bite-Down triggering of a hand held gun/firearm and tongue control of its accessories. The main utility of this invention is that it promotes more accurate shooting for the novice, un-practiced in smooth straight trigger pulls). The very act of manually pulling your own trigger with your forefinger invariably throws off your aim. It takes much practice to “straight pull” or “squeeze” a trigger so as to compensate for the side forces acting on the barrel when the trigger is pulled. Secondary benefits are to the war-fighter, for quick fingerless control of all the guns' accessories. Why make the shooter lower his weapon, lose sight of the enemy, tie up both hands and eyes in the adjustment of servo-mechanical sights, turning on/off laser sights, turning on/off flashlight, switching from semi auto to full auto, or switching from rifle to grenade launcher, etc. In the preferred embodiment this invention is comprised of an electronic cigar, held in the shooters mouth. When he bites down on the cigar it sends out an electronic signal (blue tooth or infrared, but the right is reserved to transmit short range over the whole spectrum) to the front hand grip (vertical fore grip) of the gun which contains the antenna circuitry and a rechargeable battery pack. When the signal to shoot is received by the front hand grip, a logic circuit tests whether the front safety button or front trigger is also being held in. If it is, the front hand grip sends a signal down a wire to the solenoid attached to the trigger guard. The solenoid extends, pushing the trigger into its normal “fire” position, then normal mode (semi-auto) is for the trigger to immediately retract, but if the tongue button on the mouth end of the cigar has signaled full auto mode, then the solenoid will not retract until either the front hand grip trigger is released, or bite-down is no longer occurring. Various gun accessories (laser sights, flashlight, servo-mechanical sights, semi auto, full auto, etc) are controlled by this programmable tongue button at the end of the cigar.

3. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF EACH DRAWING

FIG. 1 is an overview of all the parts on one page, trigger actuation is by connector rod.

FIG. 2 shows the invention installed on pistols that have no picatinny rail to attach the Front Hand Grip to, with trigger actuation by pneumatic/fluid plunger.

FIG. 3 shows the invention installed on short barreled revolvers that have a spindle that flips down. Shortness of the barrel prevents one from using a Front Hand Grip, thus the Battery-Pack-Receiver must be hung from a picatinny rail or permanently banded to the trigger guard. Trigger actuation is by electronic solenoid inside the trigger guard. FIGS. 4 & 5 show the invention installed on pistols of condition (FIG. 3) but in a more stable and permanent fashion. Also shown is the accompanying safety button (replacing the front trigger on hand-grip models). The electric Solenoid trigger actuator is featured in FIG. 5, but with trigger guard opened up, so that a larger more powerful solenoid can be used than when the solenoid has to lie entirely inside the trigger guard.

FIG. 6 gives the cut-away view of the trigger solenoid.

FIG. 7 gives the cut-away view of the cigar.

4. LIST OF REFERENCE NUMERALS UTILIZED IN THE DRAWING

Letters are used instead of reference numerals, and each letter is labeled in the drawing itself, instead of describing them here, to save you from flipping pages back and forth between drawing and reference to see what each number stands for.

5. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

There are two preferred embodiments of the present invention. The less expensive, less powerful one for the self defending citizen (see A below), versus the more expensive, more capable one for the Military (B below).

A) Self defending citizens may prefer the military embodiment, but there are a couple of options on it that are currently problematic in the USA. Adding a front hand grip or adding full auto capability requires a class 3 (machine-gun) license (difficult to obtain and maintain). So the citizen embodiment of this invention offers the non-hand grip, block style battery-pack-receiver (see FIG. 3) on the weapon and the less expensive model cigar (see FIG. 7) which has a push button on the mouth end of the cigar, but it's not programmable. In this embodiment the cigar button's only function is to turn the cigar on or off, i.e. it controls no accessories.

When the shooter bites down on the cigar, a coded electronic signal (unique to this cigar, and unique to this gun) is sent to the receiver module on the gun. The signal is coded so that a group of shooters on a shooting range closer than 4 feet apart wont accidentally set off their neighbors gun. Cigar Bite-Down signaling shares control of firing the gun with the safety button on the side of a block style unit battery-pack-receiver (see FIG. 3). This coded signal emanating from the bite down cigar may be sent wirelessly. In which case it will most likely be sent via blue tooth technology, but I reserve the right to transmit on any and all frequencies, infrared, radio, etc. since my signal dies out after 6 feet, just long enough to reach to the front of a rifle, my signal wont be interfering with anyone. Or if the shooter prefers, he may plug in a detachable wire into the front end of the cigar and run it down to the battery-pack-receiver mounted on the weapon, which automatically deactivates coded blue-tooth transmission, but also connects the cigar to the main battery pack, so if the cigar batteries are dead, now the cigar will still work. The wire, of course hinders head movement as wires get in the way of a shooter turning his head to observe other targets or talk to his companions. i.e. they allow less freedom of movement, and a wire is always a trap for moving hands to accidentally “catch” the wire and jerk the cigar out of the shooter's mouth, so wireless is preferred.

Next the signal is received by the block style unit battery-pack-receiver, which is attached to the weapon near the front end of the trigger guard. This battery-pack-receiver then tests to see if the safety button on the side of the battery-pack-receiver is being held in, if so, it sends a signal over a wire (FIG. 3, D) connecting the Battery-pack-receiver to a solenoid (FIG. 3, A, B) that pushes the mechanical trigger of the weapon, then immediately retracts (i.e. semi-auto mode only for the Citizen Embodiment). The battery-pack-receiver is mounted on the gun itself, and can be attached to either the barrel or stock of the gun, or picatinny rail if present, or trigger guard if that is all you have to attach it to. This battery-pack-receiver contains a battery pack (most likely several AA Ni-Cads or L-ion batteries), and a receiver/transmitter module, coded to match the cigar.

In all embodiments a rubber or plastic cigar (FIG. 7) will be used for durability and ease of cleaning, that opens up for access to batteries. These batteries are two removable, rechargeable AA batteries but can be a L-ion or Ni-Cad/battery pack, etc. Holes will be cut into the cigar (FIG. 1 Q) to run a lanyard (shoestring, light chain, etc.) through, so that the cigar can be spat out and it wont fall to the ground, but will rest lightly about the neck, so that the shooter can talk with ease (i.e. an empty mouth), but when he needs to shoot, the cigar is hanging conveniently near his mouth. In cases where the gun barrel is inadequate to hang the battery-pack-receiver from (many slide action pistols, and revolvers, fit this scenario), then the battery-pack-receiver and solenoid will both be hung from the trigger guard with tight metal bands permanently attached, (see FIG. 3) or they will be fused into one unit and the top front of the gun's trigger housing will be hacksawed off, then the trigger housing will be bent down, opening up the trigger housing, parallel to the barrel, forming a platform to rest a block type one-piece unit of solenoid housing-battery pack-receiver, as shown in FIG. 4 below. The block type unit will have a button on the side or trigger on the front for a safety switch. The Solenoid housing holds the solenoid, and will optimally reside inside the trigger guard (FIG. 3), but in cases where the trigger guard is too small, the front of the trigger guard may be cut away and solenoid resides outside the trigger guard (FIGS. 4,5). In-Line direction of the solenoid push rod is maintained in this instance, hiding inside the footprint of the solenoid housing, so that shooters hand never gets pinched, nor clothing (gloves, etc. ever get caught in weapon.) The Inside-the-trigger-guard type Solenoid Housing has slots in it around it's perimeter for bands to slip through to keep it in place inside the trigger guard. These bands can be metal for permanent attachment (FIG. 3), but will usually be plastic zip ties so if the shooter finds himself in an emergency and has to shoot back, but has dead batteries he can pull out his knife, cut the zip ties, swing-away the Solenoid Housing (so that it is no longer inside the pistol trigger guard) and proceed with normal manual triggering of their gun, i.e. put his finger on the trigger and pull the trigger. Or for those pistol owners who have a trigger housing that is too small to accommodate an electrical solenoid housing, and the gun owner doesn't want to hacksaw open trigger housing, an optional pneumatic/fluid plunger (FIG. 2, A, B, C) or connector rod (FIG. 1F,G), may be used. All push rods used to contact the trigger, will have either a slot cut into it's end to Zip Tie the push rod to the trigger to prevent the push rod from slipping off the trigger, or a “U” shaped fork to catch the trigger with.

B) The second embodiment, i.e. the military version, has all the capabilities of the citizen version, but with a few enhancements. The tongue push button on the cigar is also programmable to give control of various gun accessories. For example one long press turns cigar on/off (in off mode the cigar sends no signals, and is ready for storage), after the cigar is turned on the default mode is semi-auto mode, 1 press=full auto mode, 2 press=return to semi-auto mode, 3 press=toggle laser sight on/off control, 4 press=toggle Flash Light On/Off, 5 press=servo-sights shorter distance×50 yards, 6 press=servo-sights longer distance×50 yards, 7=ignore front hand grip trigger, i.e. one handed shooting (exposes a smaller body profile to the enemy since you are standing sideways, but at the expense of safety. If you leave your cigar on, in this mode and accidentally bite down, or drop and step on your cigar, or back pocket your cigar and sit on it, your gun WILL go off, possibly shooting your foot off, or killing your neighbor). Cigar turns off automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity. Cigar functions can be reversed if need be, i.e. bite down sequences can control accessories and tongue button can share trigger control, but this is recommended only for snipers whose bite-down might jar the rifle off target. Tongues tire easily and in a firefight you will need to tongue out/in several times to fire. Whereas the jaw muscle is one of the most powerful muscles in the body, and can “fire the gun” all day without tiring.

The military model battery-pack-receiver lying between the front hand grip and trigger guard will have at least 7 external jacks (See FIG. 1,I) for wires that run to other gun accessories.

The military embodiment also has a locater light and locater speaker on the cigar's front end (see FIG. 1) so that when the light alarm button on the pager sized locater switch (see FIG. 1) carried in ones pocket is pressed, the light flashes on the cigar. When the alarm button on the pager sized locater switch carried in ones pocket is pressed, the speaker at the end of the cigar emits an intermittent beep. Doubtless the cigar or its matching gun will get dropped in the weeds and lost in the heat of battle, and a soldier will need to quickly find it. These transmitters and receivers must be coded to activate only the matching unit, or else everyone's cigar or gun will beep/flash which could give away the position of a whole squad of men.

Also, of concern will be the amount of charge left in each battery, before the soldier goes out to battle. Therefore in the military version the Pocket Pager has LED progress bar lighting to show current state of battery charge of any of the 3 battery powered devices, Cigar, Front Hand Grip Battery-Pack, or Pocket Pager itself. Default mode, when not plugged into Cigar or Front Hand Grip is for LED progress bar to show power level in Pocket Pager. 

The invention claimed is: 1: An oral (i.e. mouth activated) device for wireless or wired actuation of various accessories on a gun; said “actuation” being accomplished by a transmitter in the mouth of the shooter, transmitting a coded programmable signal to a battery-pack-receiver on the gun, which processes the signal received and then selects which accessory to actuate, said accessories being connected by wire, hose, or rod to the battery-pack-receiver so they may be actuated/controlled in the manner desired by the shooter, said coded programmable signal, being unique to each cigar-gun pair, also used as a locater method. 2: Said “oral device” of claim 1 being an electronic cigar comprised of a) a battery pack, b) a push button on the mouth end of the cigar, c) a locater speaker on the front end of the cigar, d) a locater light on the front end of the cigar, which flashes e) a “bite down” switch, f) a jack for wired transmission of its signals to the receiver on the gun, g) a wireless transmitter for wireless communication with the receiver of the gun, and h) a logic processor for interpreting the shooters tongue presses and bite down signals, into coded, wireless signals strong enough to reach just to the end of the gun. 3: Said “wired actuation” of claim 1 consisting of a detachable 4 foot wire that plugs into a jack at the end of the cigar of claim 1 and the other end of the wire, plugging into the battery-pack-receiver mounted on the gun. 4: Said “accessories being connected by wire, . . . to the battery-pack-receiver” of claim 1 also consisting of the wires that run from the jacks on the battery-pack-receiver to the various accessories; which accessories will include but not be limited to: trigger pusher, laser sights, flash light, semi-auto mode, full auto mode, etc. 5: Said accessories being connected by . . . hose . . . to the battery-pack-receiver” of claim 1 being the alternate triggering method, consisting of a pneumatic/fluid plunger or cylinder that extends and retracts when hoses/tubes connected to it rapidly fill or empty the reservoir at the base of the plunger. 6: Said “accessories being connected by . . . rod . . . to the battery-pack-receiver” of claim 1 consisting of an alternate method of accomplishing the trigger push, for those cases where the trigger guard is too small to accommodate an electrical solenoid or hydraulic plunger for the trigger push mechanism, said alternate method utilizing a connecting rod that runs from a solenoid on the battery-pack-receiver through a small hole drilled into the center of the trigger guard to a rod/beam that has a slot cut in it's end for being zip tied to the trigger, or a “U” shaped fork on it's end to catch and trap the trigger. 7: Said “gun” of claim 1 includes any current or future weapon that relies on a mechanical trigger pulled by a human finger, including but not limited to: gun powder charged weapons, paint ball guns, laser guns, phasers, ray guns, beam weaponry, Cross Bows, etc.) 8: Said “coded programmable signals” of claim 1 being coded signals unique to this weapon only, so that the right cigar only talks to the right gun, and no others, so that a group of shooters on a shooting range wont set off each others weapon, but only their own. 9: Said “programmable signal” of claim 1 meaning user selectable; i.e. the shooter can change what two tongue presses of the button mean, or what a “bite down” signal does, and likewise for all other tongue button presses (1 press, through 9 presses); 10: Said “battery-pack-receiver on the gun” of claim 1, consists of: a) a rechargeable battery pack, b) jacks for plugging in wires that run to various accessories, c) a processor for decoding the wireless signal sent from the cigar uniquely identifying this gun as belonging to that cigar, and d) a processor for analyzing the logic of what (for example) 4 tongue pushes mean, i.e. switch from semi auto to full auto mode, and then after analysis, sending out the right signal through the right wire to actuate the correct accessory. 11: Said “coded programmable signal, . . . unique to each cigar-gun pair, . . . used a locater method” of claim 1, consisting of a matchbook sized pager carried in the shooters pocket for locating his cigar or gun, should it get dropped and lost in the weeds or in the dark; said “pager” containing buttons for Flash Cigar Light, Sound Cigar Beeper, Flash Gun Light, Sound Gun Beeper, lock/unlock pager keyboard; said “pager” will transmit a coded signal to a receiver on the cigar and on the battery-pack-receiver, coded to match only his gun and only his cigar, and no others. 